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J5he Larvd of 
MANATEE 




Number I. Historical and Descriptive 




F31] 



Qass 



The Land of 
Manatee 



A DELIGHTFUL REGION 

on the 

WEST COAST 

of 

FLORIDA 



/ ^ 



I J 



IDEAL CONDITIONS OF LIFE IN A 
NEW-OLD COUNTRY 



iMortntt il. ffiaasfliag 



Number I 

HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE 



Introductory Note 



Saps 



f^yy HE conditions described 
-■- in this and the other two 
booklets of this series are 
just as they have been 
found after painstaking, personal 
investigation. In publishing the 
information here contained, it 
has been the purpose to state 
only facts, such as the tourist, 
the settler or the investor may 
rely upon. 



APR 28 1905 
D.ofO, 



i 



"'^I^M^'^^ 




THERE IS A LARGE AND BEAUTIFUL 

and prosperous section of Florida, of much present import 
to its own people and those of the country at large, and 
of future importance assuredly far greater, which, never- 
theless, in comparison with the St. John's river region 
and the East Coast, is so little known to tourists and 
prospective settlers that one who has been over it has the 
feeling of a discoverer. If he has made a journey of 
discovery, so may other people. That is the differ- 
ence between Twentieth century explorers, who travel 
by railroad trains, and Sixteenth century adventurers, 
who went in a caravel. The point of similarity be- 
tween the modern discoverer and him of nearly four 
hundred years ago is that if what each of them found 
here in Florida is not the Garden of the Hesperides it is a 
very fair practical substitute for it — at least in this practical 
age, when men realize that their golden apples have to 
be cultivated and cannot be plucked in a wild state. De 
Soto, in search of El Dorado, landed here in 1539, and 
the reason he didn't see that he had found what he 
was looking for was because he didn't know the signs. 
Besides, the Indians, who naturally disliked to give up a 
good thing, told him that El Dorado was "a little farther 
up the creek," just as fishing holes and the milk sickness 
are nowadays. 

However this may be, certain it is that had De Soto 
traveled the world over he could have found no nearer 
approach to what he sought than he had then before him 
in what is now Manatee county. It, especially that part 
of it immediately adjacent to the Manatee River and south 
from the mouth of the river along the shores of the bays 
and for a mile or two inland, embraces every attribute of 
beauty and charm associated with Florida, in its most 
poetic and romantic aspect, as well as all of those qualities 
of a more practical and utilitarian sort which appeal to 
persons who may be seeking a livelihood from the soil, 
while enjoying the delights and beneficence of a winterless 
land. Here is a country, almost tropical in character. 



The 
Garden 
of the 
Hesperides 



frequently entirely so in appearance, that is exquisitely 
beautiful, full of romance in tradition and aspect, and 
of a marvelous fertility. Manatee county contains all of 
the desirable features of Florida, and lacks entirely those 
objectionable ones that in some localities have caused 
disappointment to the tourist and loss and failure to the 
resident. It is the healthiest county in the State, and is 
largely populated by persons who years ago went there in 
the desperate hope that here, if anywhere, their lives 
might be prolonged. 



A 

Promise 

for 

the Future 



THAT THE REGION is not more widely known 
is due to the fact that until recently it has not had adequate 
transportation facilities. Its inhabitants are those who 
have searched for such conditions as it presents, and until 
the present time there has never been the occasion or the 
opportunity to make the country known to the world. That 
it will immediately become a favorite place of resort for 
tourists, as well as a country eagerly sought by settlers, is 
assured by its natural advantages. The soil is rich, the cli- 
mate mild, in both winter and summer, and the scenery is 
beautiful, interesting and of great variety. Fishing and 
hunting are ideally good. The Gulf of Mexico, with the 
Gulf Stream and the winds that blow from it, have always 
prevented anything like a killing frost, and yet in the 
summer the days are never excessively hot, while the 
nights are invariably cool. The thermometer rarely 
reaches 95°, and then only for a few hours. 

The atmosphere is never humid and oppressive, and at 
night there is always a breeze, usually from the east — 
from the Atlantic — which, blowing through the pines 
that fill the interior of the peninsula, is not only refreshing 
but tonic. Men and women work out of doors all day 
without discomfort in the midst of summer, and a sunstroke 
is unknown. It is the common experience of persons 
going to this region in summer to find the heat much less 
oppressive than it is at their own homes, even when the 
thermometer registers as high as or higher than they are 



accustomed to, the explanation doubtless lying in the 
presence of great bodies of salt water all about. 

Even under conditions as they have been Manatee 
county has been one of the most productive counties in 
Florida, both in citrus fruits — chiefly oranges, of course — 
and in garden produce. Its waters also have supplied 
millions of pounds of the finest fish annually to the 
Northern markets. Now that there is rapid rail com- 
munication from the heart of the section and from its 
southernmost extremity, the importance of the county in 
all of these directions will be increased many times, and 
especially will the trucking industry be rapidly de- 
veloped ; for there is no better land in the world for 
gardening than is the high hammock* land of this county. 
It was the freeze of 1894-95 that sent orange growers 
into Manatee, and the truck gardeners followed. With 
only steamboats to Tampa as a means of reaching the 
markets, the fertility of the soil is such that the county 
already ranks as one of the most productive of the State in 
its exports of early vegetables as well as of fruits. 



IT WILL BE INTERESTING to note where 
Manatee county is and to give some account of the early 
history of the locality; for, to be a country as new and un- 
developed as this is, it has a long history in which tradition 
and fact are mingled in a way truly romantic. The county 
is bounded on the north by Hillsborough county, in which 
Tampa is situated, and of which it originally was a part, 
and by Tampa Bay; on the west by Tampa Bay, Sarasota 
Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico, which also reaches around 
the string of outlying keys and touches the county on the 
south. A ride of fifty-nine miles by rail brings one from 
Tampa to Braidentown, the county seat. This is the 
center of the population and the life of the county. Across 
the river is Palmetto, a thriving, active place, a mile farther 
up is the town of Manatee, the only incorporated town 
in the county, while other hamlets and villages dot 
the river bank for some miles, all in sight from the dock 



Early 

History 

of 

Manatee 

County 



^ 



A 

Beautiful 

River 



at Palmetto or Braidentown. The scene is a beautiful 
and animated one, as there is plenty of life on the water 
as well as on shore, and one might imagine himself in a 
populous district, to judge by these evidences. But as the 
county is forty-eight miles long, has an average width 
of thirty miles, and contains 1,400 square miles, while its 
population is only between 5,000 and 6,000, this appear- 
ance is deceptive, as one soon learns if he goes back 
into the mainland a short distance or goes a few miles from 
this center, either up or down the stream. The railroad 
now terminates at Sarasota, on beautiful Sarasota Bay 10 
miles south of the Manatee River. This is the home of 
the Tarpon and is a popular resort for those who delight 
in angling for the King of fishes. 

THE MANATEE RIVER gives character as 
well as its name of this entire section of country and has 
heretofore been its main highway, while its banks, especially 
the south bank, naturally have been selected by those who 
have made their homes in this smiling land. It is one of 
the most beautiful streams in the world. Towards its 
mouth, where it empties into Tampa Bay, it more properly 
may be called a bay than a river; for here it is a broad sheet 
of water, from one and a half to two miles wide, flowing 
with the tides. Its banks are lined with tall cabbage pal- 
metto trees, under which grows a wild grass that runs down 
to the white sand of its gracefully curving beach. As 
you come up the river, for a mile or two, the only house 
that you see is a low structure, almost hidden by palms, 
that was built of shell and sand by the Spaniards long 
before Americans had an existence. Under its palm- 
thatched roof Gen. Harney had his headquarters in one of 
the Seminole wars. Just back of you and in plain sight — 
you passed it but a few minutes ago — is the fortress of 
Egmont Key, which, with its companion, Mulett Key, 
guards the pass from the Gulf into Tampa Bay. Here 
the Government keeps 300 soldiers, as well as modern 
coast-defense guns that are among the most important 
safeguards of its shores. The lighthouse on Egmont Key is 
a prominent object in the landscape, and you probably have 
recognized it from the pictures you have seen of this spot. 



1 



From a broad, majestic stream, on whose astonished 
bosom De Soto sailed his ships, the river gradually narrows 
until, miles up, the branches of the trees on either bank 
meet and form an arch of dark, waxen green over the dusky, 
lazily flowing water. At its mouth in Tampa Bay one 
can imagine himself looking at a scene the ideal creation 
of a poet — some dream of the Tropics, where the glad 
gods live and golden loves sport with long-limbed wood- 
land nymphs, and mermaids sing on yonder dream- 
island, and the tall palms lean murmuring to the blue, 
painted sea that laps the low, green shore ; and the 
soft, sweet air kisses the warm and languorous earth — and 
presently you -will rub your eyes and be awake. But it 
is a real scene, and its seductive beauty is a picture that 
you will always recall. 

It is as you near Braidentown that the river takes on 
another aspect. Here, some five miles from the mouth 
of the stream, pretty houses dot the banks, well kept 
gardens run to the water's edge, and bananas, orange 
trees, and other fruit trees are interspersed with the 
palmettos, the pines, and the grand, moss-clad live oaks. 
You may imagine yourself in some favored spot of a well 
settled and highly cultivated tropical country. The bluffs 
and Indian mounds that characterized the lower river have 
given way to gently sloping banks, and sail boats and 
naptha launches ply from point to point. A steamboat 
or two may be at the Palmetto or the Braidentown dock ; 
for the river is still navigable for the boats that ply the 
waters of the bays. Indeed, it is navagable for eighteen 
or nineteen miles above Braidentown, to Rye, where it 
narrows to a little stream. A number of creeks lead off 
into the interior, and it is in these that are caught many 
of the game fresh water fish that help to make the whole 
region a very paradise for fishermen. 

On the road from Tampa you have come through miles 
of pine lands, where the turpentine gatherer is stripping 
the land of its trees, only to make it ready for the orange 
grower and the farmer; for these pine lands are rich in 



their possible productivity, as is amply testified at frequent 
intervals vi'here the land has been cleared, and now fine 
groves of orange trees or wide fields of vegetables prove 
the fertility of the soil. You pass, too, through miles 
of the uncleared hammock lands, richest of all when 
the dense growth is once removed. Witness the gardens 
just north of Palmetto! You will have seen hundreds of 
strange and beautiful fowl as you came through a watered 
region, and even from the window of your train you prob- 
ably saw alligators making their leisurely way through the 
shallow ponds, their long snouts lifted enquiringly above 
the water to gaze open-mouthed at a greater monster than 
themselves. Notwithstanding the railroad, hundreds of 
these rapidly disappearing beasts still infest the streams in 
a part of the country through which the line runs. 



Bathing 

in the 

Gulf of 

Mexico 



BY ALL MEANS YOU SHOULD STOP 

at Braidentown, and from there drive and sail to the points 
of interest. As yet Palmetto has no hotel, but that is a 
condition only temporary, and, doubtless, the present year 
will see the building of one there. It will be worth your 
while to join one of the weekly bathing parties to Anna 
Maria Kay, just off the mouth of the river. A launch will 
convey you quickly down the stream and across the bay, 
and a walk of less than a quarter of a mile brings you to 
the Gulf side of the key, where the fine beach, the gently 
rolling surf, and the warm, heavy water — it is said to be 
the saltest water on earth — form ideal conditions for a sea 
bath. The river, the bay, and the palm-bedecked key 
completely realize your expectations of the picturesque 
beauty of the far South. 

It is no wonder that a place so inviting should early 
have attracted the interest of those who approached it. 
The numerous Indian mounds on the banks of the river 
and the shores of Sarasota bay, just to the south, tell their 
own story. The Natchez and the Seminoles inhabited 
the country, and there were frequent wars between them 
and the whites, extending over the first half of the nineteenth 



4 



century. It was only after the conclusion of the war of 
1835 that the Indians retired and the white men were able 
to occupy the land. There were occasional outbreaks 
until 1855, when the last war with the Seminoles was 
fought. 

A number of pretty legends have been built around 
a most mysterious natural phenomenon that to this day 
is unexplained. Some of these are Indian and some 
Spanish stories. The phenomenon in question is known 
as the Mysterious Music of the Manatee. It is a musical 
humming that is heard at many points on the river, 
especially, at this time, in the neighborhood of Rocky 
Blufl-, five or six miles above Palmetto and Braidentown, 
though it may be heard anywhere from the mouth to this 
place. It is the sound of wind whistling through tele- 
graph wires, or, more poetically, something like the music 
of an ^olian harp. A pole thrust through the water to 
the river bottom will generally produce the sound. 



THE FIRST MEN who came into the county after 
the Indians were driven out were Josiah Gates and Miles 
Price, who in 1841 settled. Price on the north and Gates 
on the south side of the river. A son of Mr. Gates who 
accompanied his father, being then six years old, is the 
Rev. E, F. Gates, now a venerable minister living at 
Manatee. These pioneers came from Tallahassee, as did 
Messrs. Reed, Gillyard, Wyatt, the Braiden brothers, 
Pinckney Craig, Ledworth, Ware, McNeil, and Tresca, 
who all came during the early 'forties. Mrs. Tresca, 
now Mrs. Ware, is still living in the neighborhood. One 
of the early settlers was Mr. Glazier, from New Orleans. 

These men established the town of Manatee, the name 
of an amphibious animal weighing five or six hundred 
pounds, that then abounded in these waters, but is now 
nearly extinct. 

About the same time Mr. Robert Gamble, also from 
Tallahassee, settled on the north side of the river and 
there established an enormous sugar cane plantation and 



The 
First 
American 
Settlers 



(o 



sugar works. There is little left even of the ruins of the 
latter, as they supplied the brick for most of the chimneys 
that were built in the neighborhood for years after the 
building was wrecked. The Gamble mansion, since 
known as the Patten mansion, is still in a comparatively 
good state of preservation. 

Another of the early arrivals was Mr. Edmund Lee, a 
consumptive, who came to Manatee in the 'forties, hoping 
to preserve his life a few years. He died about ten years 
ago. One day he suddenly exclaimed: "I believe I'm 
dead," and he died in the instant. All of the other 
consumptives who have ever gone there to make their 
dying as prolonged as possible are still living and have 
long ago given up all idea of dying at all. 

Before recounting the interesting history of the Gamble 
plantation and of "Braiden Castle," the two most pre- 
tentious establishments of those old days, it will not do to 
omit from the list of early settlers the name of Madame 
Julia Atzeroth, "Madame Joe," as she was universally 
called up to the time of her death, comparatively a few 
years ago. She and her husband were Bavarians, who 
came to America in 1841 and went South in the hope 
of restoring Madame Atzeroth' s health. They went to 
Florida in 1843, and "homesteaded" a place on Terra 
Ceia Island, which is on the north side of Manatee River, 
separated from the mainland by a narrow inlet from the 
bay. Here the little family of three — they had a girl 
baby — lived at first in a tent and afterwards in a palmetto 
hut that they themselves built. This in time gave way to 
a log house, Madame Joe doing her share of the work of 
felling the trees and cutting the timber. They soon 
had a vegetable garden and sold their produce at Ft. 
Brooke, now Tampa. They had to endure many hard- 
ships and many difficulties due to the primitive and un- 
settled conditions that prevailed. Mr. Joe engaged in 
the Indian war of 1855 and was a Confederate soldier in 
the civil war. He died on Terra Ceia island in the '70s 
and in 1876 Madame Joe moved to Fogartyville, just 



1 



below Braidentown. Here, in 1876, she planted some 
grains of Mexican cofFee, and in 1880 she sent to the 
Commissioner of Agriculture at Washington the first 
pound of coffee ever grown in the United States, for 
which she received $10. She continued the cultivation 
of coffee sufficiently to demonstrate its entire practicability 
in this part of Florida, though it has never been raised 
there on a large scale. 

An early attempt to raise tobacco, like a later one, 
proved a failure. Some of the settlers made a serious 
effort in this direction, importing the plants and the labor, 
including a number of cigar makers, from Cuba. The 
effort was abandoned after two years, and then sugar cane 
became the chief product of the neighborhood. 



MR* ROBERT GAMBLE, who was among the 
pioneers from Tallahassee, had the largest plantation. It 
was midway between what are now Palmetto and Ellenton, 
on the north side of the river. At one time he had 1,400 
acres in cane and employed several hundred slaves. He 
built a large mill, bringing the brick and machinery from 
the north in ships. The sugar was taken to Tampa, then 
Ft. Brooke, the county seat of Hillsborough county, and 
the principal communication with the outside world was 
by means of the boats that called for the sugar crop. 
The farmers produced everything they used except coffee 
and flour, though a few of the sugar raisers bought corn 
for their stock. Generally they raised their own supply. 
As for meat, the ranges were filled with wild cattle and 
hogs, and all kinds of game were abundant. The river 
and other streams teemed with fish, as they still do, and 
shell fish could be picked up as they were wanted. Vege- 
tables grew for the asking, and it was a time of plenty. 
The Indians were generally peaceable, coming in to trade 
and being guilty of only an occasional outbreak, except 
in 1855. 

The civil war put a rude end to this condition of peace 
and prosperity, and forever ruined the sugar industry of 



Where 
They Just 
Helped 
Them- 
setbes 



^ 



Mr. 
Ben- 
jamin's 
Hiding 
Place 



this section of country. The Gamble place then belonged 
to Cofield and Davis, of New Orleans. Soon after the 
breaking out of the war they returned their slaves to that 
city and all attempt to manufacture sugar or even raise the 
cane was given up. But not satisfied with this and with 
the blockade that was maintained at the mouth of the 
river, a force of Northern soldiers was sent up to the mill 
on a gunboat called "the Chicken Thief" with orders 
to destroy the place. This they did by blowing it up, 
leaving it a shapeless mass of bricks and scrap iron. Even 
the bricks as they left them have now been carted away. 
The accompanying illustration is made from a photograph 
taken before the bricks were carried off. 

With the ruin of its leading industry the county went 
into a period of inactivity from which it was aroused less 
than ten years ago, when it was reborn. 

In 1875 the Gamble plantation was bought by Mr. 
George Patten, under a foreclosure. The place has been 
divided and much of it sold, though the Pattens still own 
part of it. Mr. George Patten, son of the orginal 
purchaser of that name, owns the home place. 

THERE IS AN INTERESTING BIT of 

Confederate history connected with this old house. After 
the close of the war, when Mr. Archie McNeil was man- 
aging the property for its owners, there arrived at the house 
one day Capt. L. G. Leslie, accompanied by a "Mr. 
Boyd." Mr. McNeil told Capt. Leslie that he had seen 
Mr. Boyd in the courts at New Orleans, and recognized 
him as Mr.Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of State of the late 
Confederate Government. Mr. Benjamin remained in 
hiding at this house for two months. His presence being 
suspected, he made his escape across the country to Sarasota 
and thence by water to Nassau, and from there to England. 
In this escape he was assisted chiefly by Mr. Fred. Tresca, 
whose descendants still live in the neighborhood. 

Another interesting old house, now a complete ruin, is 
Braiden Castle, situated a little to the east of Manatee and 



V 



"] 



at the junction of Braiden Creek and the Manatee River. 
It is a substantial, two-story, square house, with a wide 
hall running through the center. The building is of shell, 
lime, and cement, like so many of the old "tabby" 
houses of the neighborhood. The walls of this material 
are still perfectly sound, but the wood-work and the brick 
chimneys have fallen to pieces long ago. The house was 
built by Dr. Joseph A. Braiden, who was one of the early 
arrivals from Tallahassee. The substantial character of 
the house doubtless gave it the name of the " castle," to- 
gether with the fact that it withstood a severe assault by 
Indians in 1855 or 1856. Why the savages selected the 
strongest place in the county for their attack is a mystery, 
but they did, and about dusk a large body of them sur- 
rounded the house. Dr. Braiden was a most cautious man 
and did not allow himself to be taken by surprise. With 
him as guests there happened to be the Rev. J. J. Sealey, a 
traveling preacher, and Mr. Furman Chaires, of Talla- 
hassee. They drove the Indians off, but the latter carried 
with them a number of Dr. Braiden' s slaves and mules. 
The marauders were pursued and overtaken at Peace Creek. 
A number of them were killed in the battle that followed, 
and Dr. Braiden' s property was recovered. This was the 
last Indian outbreak of this section. Dr. Braiden left the 
neighborhood soon afterwards and died in Georgia. 

THE GROUND ABOUT THE CASTLE 

IS wild and picturesque. Live oaks, cedars, palmettos, 
and hickory trees grow around it, with wild grape and other 
vines climbing over them, and an undergrowth of shrubbery 
speaks of what once was an ornamental garden. Quail as 
tame as chickens run among the bushes, heedless of the in- 
truding visitor. But it is below the castle, on the banks 
of the river and the creek, that the scene evokes exclama- 
tions of delight and surprise at the picturesque beauty of the 
forest there. One cannot see this labyrinth of palmettos 
and oaks and fail to recognize the inspiration of Moorish 
architecture that made such a palace as the Alhambra pos- 



A 

Woodland 
Moorish 
Palace 



fO 



sible. There are long, cool vistas formed by tessellated col- 
umns, the trunks of tall palmettos, fretted by the stems of the 
dead leaves of many seasons, from which spring arches that 
roof the ground. The leaves of the live oaks form a 
delicate lattice work, and tapering masses of hanging moss 
are graceful pendants from the arched roof. The 
ground is nearly clear of underbrush, and one catches 
glimpses of the shimmering water of the creek or river 
gently lapping the white sands of the beach. The scene is 
one to dehght the eye of an artist. It is quite impossible 
to reproduce its mysterious beauty in an illustration. 

So much for the past of the Manatee country. The 
early inhabitants were for the most part sugar raisers, with 
here and there one who opened a store and engaged in 
trade. In the old days the cattle industry was also 
important, and remained so until the first Cuban war, 
when the Spaniards put a duty on American cattle 
imported to Cuba and ruined the business. Since our 
own war, however, it has revived and is resuming its 
former importance. Thousands of cattle are shipped 
annually from Palmetto and Braidentown directly to Cuba, 
and other thousands are sent up to Tampa to be shipped 
from that port. 

To those who are interested in the remarkable growth 
and present prosperous condition of the Manatee country, 
and in its promise of future importance both in orange 
raising and truck farming, as well as to those interested in 
fishing and shooting, found here in perfection, and to 
tourists and investors, it may be proper to say that these 
subjects are treated of fully in other booklets of this series, 
one of them being devoted exclusively to the horticulture 
and agriculture of the region. 



* " Hammock" is a local term applied to a peculiar 
soil, covered with a dense growth of trees and under- 
brush. The word is said to be of Indian origin and is 
not to be confounded with "hummock." 



Music of the Manatee 

What is your song, mysterious river, 
In whose depths the shadows quiver — 
Shadows of the long ago 
That you dream of as you flow. 
Grandly sweeping to the sea ; 
What do you sing, great Manatee ? 
"The song of life," it murmurs low; 
"I love the sea ; to her I go." 



FRANK PRESBREY COMPANY 
NEW YORK 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 






^! 



